Newsletter: Vol. 5. Iss. 3
10 August 2004
Appreciation for Michael
Prior
The Rev. Dr. Duncan MacPherson
A requiem mass for Professor Michael Prior CM, was celebrated at the chapel of Saint Mary's College, Strawberry Hill on Friday 30 July. The congregation included a large contingent of concelebrating priests led by his Vincentian confreres, representatives of the Palestinian community and clergy and laity from many Christian churches. Deacon Duncan Macpherson, a former academic colleague, fellow activist and close friend of Michael, preached the following appreciation, which is published here.
We are here in a state of loss and great sadness at the loss of a friend.
He was a different thing for each of the many people who will mourn him: brother;
uncle; brother priest; academic colleague; teacher; fellow activist-- champion
of a cause. For all of them he was a friend. Michael had that great gift of
friendship. So much so that even people who only met him once or twice counted
themselves his friends and are today experiencing a genuine sense of sorrow
at their loss.
It was Michael’s wish that I have the burden of saying something about
him in death and although remembering MP’s humour might help it will
not take the pain away. He trusted me to do this but thought a self made video
might have been better and intended to leave one. The video has not been found,
but it would doubtless have included his own often repeated, self-deprecating
line, “Modesty is one of my chief virtues.” So I wrestle with
my task, And what should I say? How do we evaluate a friend? Rightly we shrink
from a forensic analysis of this larger than life human being as that might
diminish our sense of having known Michael as a friend.
So the question I would like briefly to explore is, “How we are to cope
with our sorrow?” We can be helped when we remember Michael’s
typically Irish and Catholic attitude to death. When I first met him I would
sometimes express concern about a man of his size and build taking vigorous
exercise to which he would often reply, “Death is a teleological necessity.”
Or, on one occasion when I saw him about fifteen years ago when I saw him
jogging, I expressed concern and he replied “Well, if I die, at least
I’ll die healthy!” There was also his story—no doubt apocryphal—of
the little man who came up the microphone after a requiem mass in a church
in Dublin and announced that after the committal the mourners should meet
at the local pub and, “The corpse’s brother will buy youse all
a drink!”
We can also be helped when we remember Michael’s unique combination
of kindness and his belligerent sense of fun. Once when challenged to state
his religion by an Israeli soldier outside the Tomb of Abraham in Hebron he
answered humorously: “Well I was a Zoroastrian, but I lapsed!”
On another occasion he was arrested on a Peace March in Jericho and when told
that he was allowed one telephone he said that he wanted to ring the Pope!
His personality would have made him a superb shop steward or political backbencher.
He could engage in an argument with relish and with the determination of a
dog with a bone. And although he sometimes practised his considerable fighting
skills on his friends he reserved the full treatment for those he regarded
as purveyors of injustice or humbug. Michael was the quintessential Irish
rebel and with just a few like Michael we are enabled to understand why it
is that Britain no longer rules Ireland!
We can be helped when we remember Michael’s commitment as a scholar—and
not just his commitment to scholarship but also his commitment to committed
scholarship; an approach reflected in his book Jesus the Liberator: Nazareth
Liberation Theology (Luke 4.16-30) the Gospel we have heard today.
